1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to so-called "unpuncturable" inner tubes equipping certain types of pneumatic tires of motor vehicles, and has specific reference to a method and an apparatus specially conceived for fitting and removing tubes of this character.
In fact, these inner tubes consist of a rubber tubular tube provided with transverse cells. Inner tubes to this type are used for equipping the tires of motor vehicles in which the risks of punctures are extremely high, or should be definitively avoided, as in the case of armored vehicles such as used by the army or the police, and also certain public works vehicles.
Due to the relatively large size of the tires equipping vehicles of this type, the corresponding inner tubes themselves are also bulky. Under these conditions, these inner tubes are extremely difficults to fit and remove, considering the volume of the tubes which cannot be reduced by deflation, as in the case of standard inner tubes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various devices incorporating means capable of altering the shape of the unpuncturable inner tube to be fitted by preliminarily crushing this tube have already been proposed in the art, together with handling means capable of subsequently introducing the inner tube into the corresponding tire. However, hitherto known devices of this type are not fully satisfactory and besides they are rather awkward to use. On the other hand, in general these known devices are designed for use with one or a few well-defined tire sizes, and they cannot be used with pneumatic tires of different sizes unless a number of their component elements are changed. Finally, these prior art devices are capable only of fitting the inner tube into the tire, but cannot be used for subsequently removing an unpuncturable inner tube of the type discussed herein.